Adventure Gamers - Forums

i am sorry i haven’t been around as i should being interactive an’so at this thread, sharing my game playing experiences, but.. I’Ah’em busy running my.. ma.. m-m(strutting) Egypt’s parliament leadership’s campaign.
but I AM PLAYING and havent and wont abandon this CPT.

I was unsure of the exact steps for this part of the CPT. Landing on Kepler is different than walking on Kepler, and the process for one is quite easy, while the other is difficult. In order to land on planet Kepler, you don’t need to use the computer in the Command Room. If you choose to use it, you’ll face a complicated puzzle with DOS-like commands, which is probably the worst puzzle in the game (I already said it, I am aware that this puzzle is painful. It’s a failure and I will never ever do such a thing in a game). Unfortunately you’ll have to solve it sooner or later in order to open the airlock and then quit the Ark. But first, you need to land.

I didn’t understand how the wires changed. I figured out the correct sequence but why couldn’t I just select where I wanted the wires to go?

Sliding 2D objects is not always easy to program (it depends on the graphic engine), and in Visionaire Studio it was confusing. In the original ASA, it was simply impossible to take a wire and say where to put it because Adventure Maker was even more limited. So we decided to keep the old-school way even in the Remastered, and thought that anyway it was part of the puzzle to try to understand how the wires can switch. It’s quite easy in fact, if you click on one wire it will always permute with the same other color, so you just have to write your observations on a paper.

Becky, thank you! I made it to Planet Kepler! It was cool seeing the ark from outside.

Simon, it was really interesting to see the process of developing the shapes. If I may ask, what is your background? Are you an artist or computer programmer or a creative writer? Seems like all of these in order to make a game like this all by yourself.

wilco - 25 October 2015 06:07 PM

Was it just reaching Kepler? Oops, I think I played too much…

.

NO WAY!
but as for me i play ASA too slow beside i talk too much.

p. s: about my joke up this page   u know Wilco, i take kiddimg very seriously     .. that said, i love it when i do

wilco - 25 October 2015 06:07 PM

Was it just reaching Kepler? Oops, I think I played too much…

Don’t worry, it’s nice if you succeeded to visit Kepler already. It is still unclear to me if you had to land on Kepler or if you had to walk on Kepler (the second case includes many more steps), but Sefir will probably confirm soon.

wilco - 25 October 2015 06:07 PM

Ah, I see that it has a reason, it just seemed like an unnecessary step after getting the right combination.

There are reasons behind most of our choices, even if they can be wrong choices.

The example of the PC Forte puzzle is the best: in the original version of ASA, it was possible to write the “DOS” commands directly with your keyboard, which was working quite well. However, because of a limitation of Adventure Maker, it was impossible to confirm the command lines with “enter”, so you had to click on a button for that. Several people complained about it, so we decided to re-think the puzzle in the Remastered Edition. Even though we wanted to keep the idea of command lines, we thought it would be easier if the commands were already written, and you just had to choose them among others. We were also wondering if a “tactile” interface would not be better, in case we had the opportunity to release ASA Remastered on iOS or android. As a result we have created the current interface for this puzzle, where you need to click on the commands through a kind of virtual keyboard interface… and it proved even worst than the original way! So I have learned the lesson.

cluelass - 25 October 2015 07:11 PM

Simon, it was really interesting to see the process of developing the shapes. If I may ask, what is your background? Are you an artist or computer programmer or a creative writer? Seems like all of these in order to make a game like this all by yourself.

Thanks for asking Well I think I am more or less a “general artist” if that doesn’t sound too presumptuous (I am first a shy and humble person and I really don’t want to sound presumptuous). The idea of being a “general” artist means for me that, indeed, I need to be able to do several things on my own. Unfortunately I am not a great illustrator, I am not really good with 3D modeling, I have had to learn the basics of marketing on the job, I am not really a game developer and had to find the best graphic engine for my games, and learn a bit of programming in Vsbasic and LUA… Etc. That is what I mean with “general”: I am not specialized in anything specific, but I have become more or less balanced with several skills that are required to create games.

I have learnt 3D as a self-taught with 3dsmax when I was around 15. I learned with my brother and my cousin, with whom we created short films for the fun. They were horrible short films, just a way to learn how to model, texture, render and animate. The very basics of 3D. Then much later I entered a 3D school in Lille (France) for 2 years where I had the feeling to lose my time (but I met interesting people and did a better short film). During all that time, I had always been inspired by the graphics of Riven, and how they reached photo-realism with Mental Ray (a render engine), so I decided at some point to specialize myself in 3D rendering and learn to use several engines such as mental Ray, Final Render, Maxwell and Vray. Thanks to this, I managed to find a job in an advertising society where we used to create photorealistic videos in 3D. My most representative work at that time is this video of kitchen and bathrooms for Leroy Merlin:

- not poetic, but technically interesting!
It’s starting to get old, but we really did a very good work at that time, and reached a nice level of photorealism. However I was not really happy to work for advertising and I decided to leave this job and create my own activity of freelancer.

Since a few year that’s what I do: I create things on my own. Before ASA I wrote several books (never published, I’m not very happy with them since I’m not a writer - but I think the ideas are good). I then decided to use these books for graphical projects, and to start a cooperative comic book named Mon Village est Magique based on my first writings (http://www.monvillageestmagique.fr). It was originally a project of animated film, that I could never do because it’s too expensive (maybe later? as I said in a previous post, I think I will try to make an adventure game in that world).
Then in 2011 I released my first Sci-Fi short film, based on another book. It gave birth to ASA, that you all know quite well now. The release of ASA was great because it allowed me to discover better the world of adventure games with the eyes of a developer, and meet several people who are really passionate. It’s thanks to them (and all of you) that I decided to create a “sequel” to ASA. I am currently working on ASA2 : Another Space Adventure, even if I decided not to use that title, and I named it Catyph: The Kunci Experiment (it’s not a direct sequel to ASA - it takes place in the same world, that is all).
I think I have learned quite a lot through ASA and ASA Remastered and I am now comfident that Catyph will be awesome for fans. The graphics will be better and more immersive, I have pushed Visionaire Studio to its limits and I have had very good ideas of puzzles - probably more logical than in ASA. I promise there will be enough challenge (and an easy mode too), and I think the game will be 10~15 hours long, if not more. You can learn more on http://www.catyph.fr where you can find videos and screenshots in the gallery.

That is almost all about me and my background, and my future will depend on the success of Catyph of course. There are so many projects and ideas that I would like to bring to life! I find it much better to create on my own, even if it’s really hard and needs sacrifices.

Sefir - 26 October 2015 12:45 PM

Puny excuses!!
Come back to the playthrough right now!!!

Joking of course. Take your time Advie!

wilco - 26 October 2015 09:09 AM

You had put so much effort in ASA as you do in complaining about Telltale you would have probably finished the game by now i’m kidding, of course

thanks Guys SooOoMUCH, it might seems inappropriate giving thanks at this situation, as i can understand but doubt it at the same time, but ......
these quotes/posts/replies                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   of you Wilco and Sefir had have made me happy… plus i know you both are ttg lovers and supporters, and being maybe neutral or subjective or.. i don’t really know exactly the word i m need for to have here, that makes the best sense of…  (what) to be THANKed for! .
   

Holy crap, that computer puzzle was tedious!

I have now set foot outside the Ark on Kepler, but after fiddling with that computer for over an hour, I’m now crosseyed and tired. Exploring Kepler will be for tomorrow.

Scrap what I said about the game being easy so far. Half the time I have no idea what I’m doing. It’s usually only when a cutscene starts, or the “(autosave)” message appears that I realize my last attempt was the right one…

It started with the colour puzzle. I had no idea whether or not my pushing of the colours was correct or not. It was only when I saw the needed 13 red dashes that I knew I did it right.

Then the coordinates: I had the Kepler coordinates but it took me a while to enter them correctly. First I missed the clue about the Z-axis counting downwards, and then it still took me a while to realize that the coordinates use a 0-5 scale after the decimal point instead of a 0-10 one (so a .3 meant the third line, not halfway between the first and second).
It did however make me a lot more confident that I’ll be able to reach Planet Forte on my first try. Different coordinates now than before in my notes. Although, on second thought, that wouldn’t change the place on the grid, so I would’ve gotten it correct anyway. Just for the wrong reasons…

I disliked that I had to move both markers again after each failed attempt. Would make more sense to me if they remained in place and you just needed to make small adjustments each time.

After succeeding, and seeing a nice cutscene (as well as gorgeous scenery), I found the keyboard so I went to work on connecting it. I knew how it needed to be connected (i.e. in what order the wires needed to be), but I basically had to trial-and-error getting them in said order. I didn’t figure out how the wires switched places exactly.

After that, logging in was easy (it really was under our nose!), but actually using that computer was hell.
If I have to click ‘P’, then ‘.’, then ‘FORTE’, then ‘<’ and then whatever command I need once more in this game, I’m probably going to punch through my monitor. Also, clicking away meant you had to log back in again too.
Drove me nuts.

And then the ‘HELP’ command didn’t help much and I got far too many “wrong syntax” messages for comfort. I was actually *this* close to asking for a nudge here (twice!) but then my next attempt got the ‘personal’ folder open, or got me going again with the ‘secure’ command.
The hidden password threw me off at first too. I initially thought it’d be for the other computer, but that got straightened out immediately (if a command suddenly requires a password, then it’s obvious what that’s supposed to be - especially if your first attempt (CSE2011) didn’t work…

Even though practically every successful line you enter pushes you towards the final solution of this puzzle, it’s still tedious as heck to have to re-enter most of it each time. You can’t believe how happy I was after hundreds of ‘P.FORTE<FORCE< lines that the message finally said the airlock was now open...

So, I’ve now set foot on Kepler, but I’m taking a break until tomorrow. That hacking puzzle was too tiring…



As an aside: every time I launch the game, I watch the main screen until the music loops for the first time. I just like the simplicity of the main menu with the title in the middle and the video in the background, but I really like the music. In fact, it reminds me somewhat of the first Mass Effect game.

i am interested to know if* the voice descriptions aren’t really recorded? but instead it’s one of those writings-insert-recognizer-announcer-app as that one used for The Dream Machine, optionally?

also i know we can skip dialogues/voice-description-sentences easily by clicking the mouse anytime, but why that a-part-of-a-second-extra-length-added-to each-sentnce wasn’t taken care of, its like you need to skip each sentence even after its all been said/heard, or wait those extra moment(s) at the end of each sentence, to get hold of your controls over the game again!

wilco - 26 October 2015 09:09 AM

You had put so much effort in ASA as you do in complaining about Telltale you would have probably finished the game by now.

I myself find Advie’s comments to be rather amusing, interesting reads. TTG are not for everyone, they have their fans and not-so-fans.

Right now is such a good time in adventure gaming, we have something for everyone, Myst-like games like ASA, TTG story orientated games, traditional point and click games and the visual novel type adventure games from Japan to name a few.